Poetry, nature, and speculative philosophical musings

End of semester crunch

The university year here in the USA is almost over; at my college, today is the last day of classes, and next week is final exam week. As a result, I have little space in my mind for speculative musings and little time for reading–other than reading student papers.

This is also the time of year when my colleagues in academia, feeling stressed and slightly burned out, share stories from the trenches and sigh over perceived inadequacies of students in general, higher education in general, academic administrations in general, and life in general. I admit to occasionally joining the chorus, but this year I am making a concerted effort to refrain from generalities in order to cultivate a bit more mindfulness and compassion.

I have been thinking a great deal lately about stereotyping and how the short-cut of pigeonholing people by general traits, which demographics tends to bolster as sociologically “true,” can hinder the ways human beings interact and value one another. Most of us shy from outright stereotyping by race; and many of us are aware that there are ingrained stereotypes concerning sexual preferences, disabilities, and nationalities about which we ought to try to be sensitive. So I would like to remind my colleagues–who do have every reason to be exasperated as the academic year closes–that much as we want to generalize people by their generation or their status as students, each one of them is a human being, individual, unique, with his or her own burdens and inconsistencies, worthy of compassion.

Not necessarily worthy of a higher grade than they’ve earned…that would not be compassion so much as rescuing or caving to some sort of pressure. But when we must place an ‘F’ on the transcript, I hope we remember to do so with compassion rather than irritation, resentment, or triumph.

The “Black Madonna” –A view from the heights of the DeSales University Campus; photo by Patrick Target

There are other stereotypes we employ regularly, partly because language was invented to get information across to others rapidly, and generalities offer the expediency of compressed information. The culturally and perhaps evolutionarily ingrained “us vs. them” attitude of included, excluded, and outliers of community also lends itself to forgetting the individual. As a person who often takes such language- and thinking-related shortcuts in conversation (and in little angry rants), I am in no position to chide my fellow human beings about their shortcomings. I do, however, want to remind myself that it would be a good idea to recognize, in my heart, that general judgments of others occur all too easily–unconsciously–unmindfully.

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One comment on “End of semester crunch”

Again, you remind me of other years, and although the student faces are different, it seems the threads of thought for those who provide the final grade are not much changed. No doubt some trends are even more prevalent and others, less. Your students, no matter the final grade, have gained.

These days I, too, am looking less to stereotype and generalize and search my heart for a more compassionate approach. I know I must begin with myself and that is a bit of an undertaking as I am more than aware of all of the times that I lead with a quick tongue and not my heart.